Podfader

Howdy -- I'm Kyle Bondo, and this is Podfader! My weekly podcast about helping you keep your podcast from podfading, especially when the drive for new and interesting content becomes a struggle.

S1:E8 -- You Might Suck at Podcasting

Step Two of the Nine Steps Back to Podcasting is Humility.

This step centers on believing that you don't know everything about podcasting or realizing that your way may not be the best way to podcast. That's a tough mindset to crack because it requires you to admit that your podcast could be better. If you've already come around to agreeing that your podcast and your podcasting skills are worth working on.

Now you need to have a real conversation with yourself on what "worth working on" really means to you. Which is why I go back to the name of this episode: You might suck at podcasting!

Well, do you?

How would you know?

Getting to the Root Causes with Five Whys

The Five Whys works something likes this:

#1 -- I stopped podcasting. WHY? #2 -- I didn't want to do it anymore. WHY? #3 -- I take a long time to create an episode. WHY? #4 -- I don't have any ideas on what to talk about. WHY? #5 -- I wait until the last minute to plan episodes.

The root cause in this example takes a general problem statement: "I stopped podcasting", and drills down through the potential causes to find a possible root cause.

You may have already discovered that I can answer the WHY's any way I want to. Which means I can deflect and hide the real reasons for why I stopped podcasting. But if you are serious about coming back to podcasting, then you have to have a very honest conversation with yourself.

By using a root cause approach to investigate your own technical, emotional, and motivational skills within your podcast, you can discover a lot about the reasons something happened.

Podfaders don't happen overnight

They podfade after a dozen tiny things go wrong in their production, their expectations, and even their lives. Using the Five Whys is just one way to be honest with yourself. You know the real reasons behind your problems. That is the core lesson of Step Two of Nine Steps Back to Podcasting.

Having the humility to admit you're not perfect, and the courage to do something about it. If you can do that, then you're ready to move forward with a much clearer understanding of what you need to work on to improve. 

About the Show

Podfader, hosted by veteran podcaster Kyle Bondo, focuses on the challenges of keeping your podcast going and the drive we all have has creators to keep our podcasts going with new and interesting content. If you're a struggling podcaster, Podfader will be your sanctuary to get you through the messy middle of any podcasting strategy. Stop fading and start casting!

Find the complete shownotes at Podfader.com

Presented by Gagglepod.com

Howdy -- I'm Kyle Bondo, and this is Podfader! My weekly podcast about helping you keep your podcast from podfading, especially when the drive for new and interesting content becomes a struggle.

S1:E7 -- Is Your Podcast Worth It?

Step One of the Nine Steps Back to Podcasting is Acceptance.

This step centers on you either admitting that your podcast is worth working on, or admitting that your done with that podcast and letting it podfade. That's a tough pill to swallow.

To podcast or not to podcast, that is the question!

Well, which is it? Are you ready to stop pretending you're a podcaster and letting go of your podcast for good? Or do you really want to do the hard, sometimes thankless work of building a podcast worthy of an audience?

These are both equally easy and difficult questions at the same time. Easy as in it is easy to SAY you want to give up or carry on. But difficult in what the repercussions will be when you choose. Sure, podfading seems easy... at first. But it comes with a whole assortment of sadness and regret. Sometimes that sadness and regret can gnaw at you until the next thing you do.

Deciding to buckle down and get back to podcasting is the opposite. All the difficulty is in the beginning when you are trying to create something from nothing. Once it exists and is in the world, then it can easier to keep going. It is the stopping, the long pause that makes an existing podcast hard to start again. The easy of stopping, of just putting it all down for a while is very seductive. But at what cost?

This leads to the first of many tough challenges and introspections you will need to face. They are like the Trials of Hercules. Nobody else can face them but you. And they start with a simple question:

Do you want to be a podcaster?

Well, do you?

About the Show

Podfader, hosted by veteran podcaster Kyle Bondo, focuses on the challenges of keeping your podcast going and the drive we all have has creators to keep our podcasts going with new and interesting content. If you're a struggling podcaster, Podfader will be your sanctuary to get you through the messy middle of any podcasting strategy. Stop fading and start casting!

Find the complete shownotes at Podfader.com

Presented by Gagglepod.com

Howdy -- I'm Kyle Bondo, and this is Podfader! My weekly podcast about helping you keep your podcast from podfading, especially when the drive for new and interesting content becomes a struggle.

S1:E6 -- Fellowship of the Podfader

I had everything ready to record my podcast. I took a deep breath, clicked record, and moved up to the mic. Then a hot wave of embarrassment hit me. I had nothing to say, and I was in trouble.

The Two Realities

I like being a podcaster but didn't like doing the podcasting work. I was avoiding my podcast.

Why? Because it takes work to produce and I had gotten lazy. I didn't want to plan my next episode, do the research, and write the script. I just wanted to "wing it" — or what my friend Tim calls "improv"! Only what they never tell you about improv is that IT takes a lot of work too!

What kind of work? Planning, research, and scripting — just like my podcast. The epiphany was the realization of how truly prideful I had been and it took a frozen moment in front of a microphone to point it out. I had skipped all the necessary steps that take place BEFORE the microphone gets turned on.

I had let my podcasting muscles go weak.

Return of the Podcaster

When you come to this realization — owning the fact that YOU let this happen — that YOU let your podcasting muscle go weak, you need to take your podcasting skills back to the gym!

The Nine Steps Back to Podcasting:

• Step 1 — Acceptance: You have to admit that your podcast is worth working on.
• Step 2 — Humility: You need to believe that you don't know everything about podcasting.
• Step 3 — Clarity: You decide that you need to improve your skills and learn a better way to produce your podcast.
• Step 4 — Insight: You take an honest look at your podcast and expose what you need to fix or improve.
• Step 5 — Commit: You take full ownership of your shortcomings and create a plan for how you can improve.
• Step 6 — Focus: You take action by prioritized your most important improvements and taking real action to work on each one.
• Step 7 – Reflection: You take a personal inventory of your progress, celebrate what you have accomplished and admitted to yourself when you feel like podfading.
• Step 8 – Fellowship: You activity seek honest feedback from your podcasting community.
• Step 9 – Mentorship: You actively give back what you have learned to the podcasting community and help other podcasters from podfading by becoming mentors.

And now you know.

About the Show

Podfader, hosted by veteran podcaster Kyle Bondo, focuses on the challenges of keeping your podcast going and the drive we all have has creators to keep our podcasts going with new and interesting content. If you're a struggling podcaster, Podfader will be your sanctuary to get you through the messy middle of any podcasting strategy. Stop fading and start casting!

Find the complete shownotes at Podfader.com

Presented by Gagglepod.com

Howdy -- I'm Kyle Bondo, and this is Podfader! My weekly podcast about helping you keep your podcast from podfading, especially when the drive for new and interesting content becomes a struggle.

S1:E5 -- Ratings and Review Swap Meet

Focus on delivering great content to build an audience not on getting ratings and review from someone that is not your target listener. How are they going to know if you are any good if they don't even like the content you're delivering?

About the Show

Podfader, hosted by veteran podcaster Kyle Bondo, focuses on the challenges of keeping your podcast going and the drive we all have has creators to keep our podcasts going with new and interesting content. If you're a struggling podcaster, Podfader will be your sanctuary to get you through the messy middle of any podcasting strategy. Stop fading and start casting!

Find the complete shownotes at Podfader.com

Presented by Gagglepod.com

Howdy -- I'm Kyle Bondo, and this is Podfader! My weekly podcast about helping you keep your podcast from podfading, especially when the drive for new and interesting content becomes a struggle.

S1:E4 -- Release the Podcast Throttle

No one has ever made a rule that prevents your daily, weekly, or monthly podcast from changing its release schedule, taking time off, or modifying its length from time to time.

What does it mean to throttle your podcast?

Throttling your podcast is defined as reducing or decreasing the number of episodes you release. This could be any kind of decision that results in a slow down, pause, or even complete stop of your podcast. If you think of your podcast as an engine, each episode is the fuel for that engine. No fuel, no engine.

The throttle to that engine is your release schedule. You either throttle your podcasting engine on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Somewhere you decided -- hopefully before you launched your first episode -- on what timeframe you were going to release your episodes. The throttle is set to that specific schedule. 

Release your podcast every Thursday? Then your throttle is set to a weekly release schedule starting the moment your release your episode on Thursday and running until you release your next episode on the following Thursday. Then it repeats. This is your throttle tempo -- or the rhythm of your own podcast release cycle.

Podcasting Disruptions

#1 - Late -- is when you produce your podcast but you don't get it published at the same time each time.#2 - Pause -- is when you stop producing your podcast for a short period of time. #3 - Hiatus -- is when there is an interruption in the intensity to which you produce your podcast.#4 - Podfade -- is when the pause or interruption that stopped you from producing a podcast become permanent.

Reasons to Throttle

#1 -- Need to Pull Back #2 -- You need to finish something else #3 -- Something Didn't Work #4 -- It's not fun anymore #5 -- Just need a break

Alternatives to Podcast Throttling

#1 - Try changing your podcast from Episodic to Serial or Seasonal.#2 - Try to make better use of your time by doing one a month batch recording.#3 - Try going back to your episode archives and recycle your best episodes with a "Best Of" group of shows.#4 - Reduce the size of your episodes to produce Short Episodes.#5 - Take advantage of quick episodes where you check in with your audience for an update on what's coming next

About the Show

Podfader, hosted by veteran podcaster Kyle Bondo, focuses on the challenges of keeping your podcast going and the drive we all have has creators to keep our podcasts going with new and interesting content. If you're a struggling podcaster, Podfader will be your sanctuary to get you through the messy middle of any podcasting strategy. Stop fading and start casting!

Find the complete shownotes at Podfader.com

Presented by Gagglepod.com

Howdy -- I'm Kyle Bondo, and this is Podfader! My weekly podcast about helping you keep your podcast from podfading, especially when the drive for new and interesting content becomes a struggle.

S1:E3 -- Come Back to Podcasting

Podcasting will always provide you with greater opportunities for discovery, audience growth, and monetization than blogging or video could ever wish to do.

An excuse I've heard podfaders give for leaving their podcast.

It has to do with their confidence in podcasting as a medium for delivering a message. Somewhere, they were told that blogging and video are far more effective. What reason do they give for the effectiveness of blogging and video? Simply put, they claim that more people -- way more people -- are familiar with how to find it.

With a blog -- it's a Link to a webpage. They can share a link on any social media, and it goes right to their blog. Done.

With a video -- it's a Link to a video. They can share a link on any social media, and it goes right to Youtube. Or it will play right in the post. Again... done.

And they are right. Podcasting does not have this advantage. You really can't put the audio from your podcast into a Facebook post. You can put something that kind-of works like that -- even if it's a snippet of audio. But it is not the same user experience as having a video play. And let's not forget that Facebook is really not an audio platform.

You can also add a podcast player to your website that could be found by an including a website link. Someone could go to that page and hear your latest episode too. However, if they start to see what else is on your podcast website, they player usually stops unless it's super special. And the mobile experience with that setup is very disappointing.

To get the same experience as video, they need to connect your podcast to a dedicated player. That's if they even know what a dedicated player is. There are still a few extra steps in the podcast listening experience before it becomes seamless. But that is their main argument. Because it's not seamless -- not yet -- it's not as effective as blogging or video. That is a very powerful claim -- especially if it can convince podcasters to leave podcasting altogether.

But is it true?

I take this on one medium at a time...

About the Show

Podfader, hosted by veteran podcaster Kyle Bondo, focuses on the challenges of keeping your podcast going and the drive we all have has creators to keep our podcasts going with new and interesting content. If you're a struggling podcaster, Podfader will be your sanctuary to get you through the messy middle of any podcasting strategy. Stop fading and start casting!

Find the complete shownotes at Podfader.com

Presented by Gagglepod.com

Howdy -- I'm Kyle Bondo, and this is Podfader! My weekly podcast about helping you keep your podcast from podfading, especially when the drive for new and interesting content becomes a struggle.

S1:E2 -- The Silent Microphone

All any content creator needs to do to build a podcast worthy of an audience is decide to put their voice in the world.

If you can dream up a blog post, you can dream up a podcast

When I first started my podcasting journey, I did everything wrong. I thought I could just speak into any microphone, record my voice in any recording software, and publish it. Instead, I had to learn how to podcast the correct way, the same way I had to learn to write blog posts the correct way. Making mistakes is part of the process.

Fortunately, I learned early on that podcasting is still only a tool. Like any tool, learning how to use it well can be taught. You CAN learn to do this! I can show you what I think are the good guidelines and solid processes that will make your podcast worthy of your audience. But you are the only one that can make your podcast the best it can be. And leave your blog in the atomic dustbin of useless media where it belongs.

About the Show

Podfader, hosted by veteran podcaster Kyle Bondo, focuses on the challenges of keeping your podcast going and the drive we all have has creators to keep our podcasts going with new and interesting content. If you're a struggling podcaster, Podfader will be your sanctuary to get you through the messy middle of any podcasting strategy. Stop fading and start casting!

Find the complete shownotes at Podfader.com

Presented by Gagglepod.com

Howdy -- I'm Kyle Bondo, and this is Podfader! My weekly podcast about helping you keep your podcast from podfading, especially when the drive for new and interesting content becomes a struggle.

S1:E1 -- I, Podfader

In this weeks episode, I introduce the show by sharing a few of my podcasting challenges with you to include the biggest one: Showing Up.

Meanwhile, I get into "You might be a podcaster if..." by exploring the five ways to become a podfader:

#1 -- Learning never stops#2 -- Schedules get hit by life#3 -- Gear always flakes#4 -- Content creation never ends#5 -- Overnight success is a myth

About the Show

Podfader, hosted by veteran podcaster Kyle Bondo, focuses on the challenges of keeping your podcast going and the drive we all have has creators to keep our podcasts going with new and interesting content. If you're a struggling podcaster, Podfader will be your sanctuary to get you through the messy middle of any podcasting strategy. Stop fading and start casting!

Find the complete shownotes at Podfader.com

Presented by Gagglepod.com